House passes 'partial birth' ban

Key victory for abortion foes

WASHINGTON - The House voted Wednesday to ban a procedure that abortion foes call ''partial birth'' abortion, moving the restriction a crucial step closer to President Bush's signature.

With the 282-139 vote, Congress was on the verge of ending a practice that Rep. Steve Chabot said was ''truly a national tragedy.''

Abortion rights groups said they would challenge it in court as soon as it becomes law, thrusting the issue of the ban's constitutionality toward a divided Supreme Court.

The ban would be one of the most significant restrictions on abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision recognizing abortion rights. Ken Connor, president of the anti-abortion Family Research Council, said passage was indicative of ''a tide that is running against Roe v. Wade, which will eventually be dismantled.''

Bush - unlike former President Clinton, who twice vetoed partial birth abortion bans - urged Congress in his State of the Union address in January to give him a bill he could sign.

The administration strongly believes the bill ''is both morally imperative and constitutionally permissible,'' the White House said in a statement.

The Senate passed a nearly identical bill in March, but differences with the House must still be ironed out before the legislation is sent to the president. Likely to be deleted: nonbinding language added by the Senate in support of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Abortion opponents have pushed the bill since Republicans captured the House in 1995, saying they want to stop a particularly abhorrent means of ending a pregnancy. ''Partial birth abortion is a gruesome and inhumane procedure and it is a grave attack against human dignity and justice. This practice must be banned,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., at the opening of the debate.

Physicians who knowingly perform the procedure would be subject to up to two years in prison.

Opponents of the bill cited a 2000 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar Nebraska law as unconstitutional, and said women would still have access to late-term abortions using other procedures.

''Passing an unconstitutional bill will not save one life,'' said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas.